Bio

Dr. Benn Steil is senior fellow and director of international economics at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. He is also the founding editor of International Finance, a top scholarly economics journal, and lead writer of the Council’s Geo-Graphics economics blog. Prior to his joining the Council in 1999, he was director of the International Economics Programme at the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London. He came to the Institute in 1992 from a Lloyd’s of London Tercentenary Research Fellowship at Nuffield College, Oxford, where he received his MPhil and DPhil (PhD) in economics. He also holds a BSc in economics summa cum laude from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Steil has written and spoken widely on international finance, monetary policy, financial markets, and economic history. He has testified before the U.S. House, Senate, and CFTC on financial market and monetary issues. He is a regular op-ed contributor at the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times. His latest book, The Battle of Bretton Woods: John Maynard Keynes, Harry Dexter White, and the Making of a New World Order, won the 2013 Spear’s Book Award in Financial History, took third prize in CFR’s 2014 Arthur Ross Book Award competition, was shortlisted for the 2014 Lionel Gelber Prize (“the world’s most important prize for non-fiction,” according to The Economist), and was the top book-of-the-year choice in Bloomberg’s 2013 poll of global policymakers and CEOs. The book has been called “a triumph of economic and diplomatic history” by the Financial Times, “a superb history” by the Wall Street Journal, “the gold standard on its subject” by the New York Times, and “the publishing event of the season” by Bloomberg’s Tom Keene. His previous book, Money, Markets and Sovereignty, was awarded the 2010 Hayek Book Prize. Financial Statecraft: The Role of Financial Markets in American Foreign Policy was named one of the “Best Business Books of 2006” by Library Journal and an “Outstanding Academic Title of 2006” by Choice.

The Marshall Plan

When economic and political turmoil hit a critical part of the world, calls pour forth for "a new Marshall Plan" to alleviate hardship, calm passions, and stir hope. Hillary Clinton invoked the Marshall Plan in the context of the Arab Spring; Peer Steinbrueck contrasted it glowingly to Angela Merkel's policies toward the eurozone; George Soros pleaded for one to counter Russia in Ukraine. Indeed, the Marshall Plan, the most ambitious and visionary element of the United States' immediate post–World War II foreign policy, has become virtually synonymous with enlightened foreign intervention. Seen widely in hindsight as the best of times for American diplomacy, the years of the Marshall Plan were also among the most fraught and challenging for those who crafted it under enormous strain in a matter of months. Much as my most recent book, The Battle of Bretton Woods, was a response to calls from world leaders for "a new Bretton Woods" in the wake of the financial crisis, my forthcoming book, A World Upended: The Making and Meaning of the Marshall Plan, will be a response to the current conjurings of that legend.

This project is made possible through the support of the Smith Richardson Foundation.

International Finance

Published three times a year, International Finance (IF), which I edit for Wiley publishers, is a top scholarly journal that takes on the challenging, topical questions that central bankers and treasury officials care about. In addition to our double-refereed articles, IF publishes extended book reviews and original commentary pieces by top current and former policymakers, like Alan Greenspan. Free online access to one article in the most recent issue is always available on the Center for Geoeconomic Studies web page.

Over the past two decades, another form of economic exchange besides imports and exports has risen to a level of vastly greater significance and political concern: the purchase and sale of financial assets across borders.

Benn Steil’s op-ed explains how the mechanics of implementing Federal Reserve monetary policy have changed radically since the crisis. Little known is that the new plumbing is not actually controlled by the FOMC, but by the much smaller Board of Governors. Given that the Board is decidedly more dovish than the FOMC, Fed watchers focused on the latter may be expecting a more aggressive timing and pace of rate rises than is likely.

Central bank currency swaps are becoming the new cross-border tool of choice in financial crisis management. This interactive explores the rapid growth of currency swaps since 2007 and its implications for the global financial system.

Benn Steil’s Forbes op-ed with Dinah Walker examines why Walmart is raising its minimum starting wage. Contrary to arguments from popular commentators, there is no logical reason to suggest hidden motives related to political pressure. Walmart remains as relentless on costs as ever; wage pressures in the retail sector, we show, are wholly sufficient to explain the company’s move.

Benn Steil’s new Forbes op-ed examines Paul Krugman's data analysis purporting to document definitively that "austerity," defined by declines in real government purchases, damaged growth between 2010 and 2013. He shows that this finding collapses entirely when he excludes countries without independent monetary policies, such as those in the Eurozone. For countries with independent monetary policies, changes in real government purchases had no effect on growth.

Benn Steil and Dinah Walker analyze the market reaction to the publication of the European Central Bank's long-awaited bank stress test results. The ECB's coddling of stress-tested banks — through the use of inflated inflation estimates and generous treatment of tax offsets against future profits which may never arise — precipitated a sell-off of bank stocks in a period when broad European indexes were up significantly. Unlike with the successful 2009 U.S. stress tests, there is no credible backstop of public funds available for Eurozone bank recapitalization, which would account for the ECB's reluctance to draw attention to the sector's undercapitalization.

Benn Steil's op-ed in the Wall Street Journal debunks the popular notion that the famous 1944 Bretton Woods agreements—establishing the IMF, the World Bank, and a dollar-based fixed exchange-rate system—were important in reviving global trade and growth after World War II. In fact, dependence on bilateral trade and inconvertible currencies was greater in the early postwar years than it was in the 1930s. The Marshall Plan and the creation of the GATT were, he argues, far more powerful instances of effective, enlightened, and enduring internationalism emerging from the war.

The 1944 Bretton Woods conference ensured a leading role for Washington in the global financial system but also contributed to present-day problems that will be difficult to fix, says CFR's Benn Steil.

Benn Steil's essay in the July/August issue of Foreign Affairs looks at the international consequences of U.S. monetary policy action. He argues that developing-nation governments are coming to see the need for engineering current-account surpluses and large dollar-reserve stockpiles as a means of insulating themselves against Fed-induced capital-flow whiplash. As this amounts to "currency manipulation" in the eyes of U.S. policymakers, trade tensions are apt to grow.

Benn Steil's latest op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, co-authored with Dinah Walker, explains why the ECB's anticipated foray into more aggressive monetary stimulus next week won't have any significant effect on the availability and cost of private-sector credit. The ECB believes that its ongoing bank stress tests will help revive the eurozone's moribund banking industry, but they argue that the tests are counterproductive without a mechanism in place to assure sufficient recapitalization of banks that fall short—as there was in the United States in 2009.

Benn Steil and Dinah Walker argue that the ECB's bank stress tests will roil rather than calm markets if recapitalization funds are not set aside in advance, as they were in the case of the highly successful U.S. tests in 2009.

Benn Steil's latest op-ed in Forbes, co-authored with Dinah Walker, shows that the Fed's incorporation of the unemployment rate into its forward guidance has been a failure. Such poor communications could roil the markets as the Fed shifts policy from accommodation to tightening.

In his testimony before the House Committee on Financial Services' Subcommittee on Monetary Policy and Trade, Benn Steil argues that changes in U.S. monetary policy can have significant impact on emerging-market capital inflows and outflows and that the resulting exchange rate movements against the dollar can have large and rapid effects on the level of inflation and exports.

Benn Steil's latest op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, co-authored with Dinah Walker, shows that developing countries running large current account deficits have seen their economies whipsawed by volatile capital flows triggered by unconventional monetary policy at the Fed and elsewhere in the developed world. The clear lesson for such countries is that they should pursue policies which constitute "currency manipulation" in Washington, thereby setting the stage for rising global trade tensions.

Benn Steil's latest Forbes op-ed, co-authored with Dinah Walker, shows why Greece may turn out to be a deciding factor in the German elections. While it is widely believed that a fresh mandate for Chancellor Merkel means more robust German involvement to end the eurozone crisis, they show why the loss of her FDP coalition partner could mean the opposite.

In this book, CFR Senior Fellow Benn Steil challenges the notion that Bretton Woods was the product of an amiable Anglo-American collaboration, and explains that it was in reality part of a much more ambitious geopolitical agenda aimed at eliminating Great Britain as an economic and political rival. Teaching notes by the author.

Benn Steil takes a critical look at the longstanding efforts of former IMF historian James Boughton to disparage the evidence that the Fund's founding architect, FDR Treasury official Harry Dexter White, engaged in espionage on behalf of the Soviet Union.

Asked by Maxwell Fenton, from Dowling Catholic High School August 12, 2013

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is, with the European Commission and the European Central Bank, part of the so-called troika responsible for setting the conditions that the Greek government must meet to secure continued official financial support. Greece is the eurozone's largest IMF program beneficiary, with about €28 billion in outstanding loans from the IMF.

Benn Steil on Federal Reserve Exit Strategy

Speaker:

Presider:

The Future of the Eurozone

Speakers:

Jacob Kirkegaard, Research Fellow, Peter G. Peterson Institute For International Economics, Thomas Philippon, John L. Vogelstein Faculty Fellow and Associate Professor of Finance, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, New York University, Benn Steil, Senior Fellow and Director of International Economics, Council on Foreign Relations

Listen-Only Teleconference: Can the Eurozone be Rescued?

Speakers:

Currency Wars, Capital Controls, and the Outlook for the International Monetary System

Discussants:

Ajay Shah, Professor, National Institute for Public Finance and Policy, New Delhi, Alan M. Taylor, Senior Advisor, Morgan Stanley; Professor of Economics and Director of the Center for the Evolution of the Global Economy, University of California, Davis, Benn Steil, Senior Fellow and Director of International Economics, Council on Foreign Relations; Author, Money, Markets, and Sovereignty

Presider:

Sebastian Mallaby, Director, Maurice R. Greenberg Center for Geoeconomic Studies, and Paul A. Volcker Senior Fellow for International Economics,, Council on Foreign Relations; Author, More Money Than God: Hedge Funds and the Making of a New Elite

Currency Wars, Capital Controls, and the Outlook for the International Monetary System

Speakers:

Ajay Shah, Professor, National Institute for Public Finance and Policy, New Delhi, Benn Steil, Senior Fellow and Director of Interntional Economics, Council on Foreign Relations; Author, Money, Markets, and Sovereignty, Alan M. Taylor, Senior Advisor, Morgan Stanley; Professor of Economics and Director, Center for the Evolution of the Global Economy, University of California, Davis

Presider:

Sebastian Mallaby, Director, Maurice R. Greenberg Center for Geoeconomic Studies, and Paul A. Volcker Senior Fellow for International Economics, Council on Foreign Relations; Author, More Money Than God: Hedge Funds and the Making of a New Elite

A Second Look at the Great Depression and New Deal, Session One: The 1920s - Bubble, Growth, or Gold?

Introductory Speaker:

Panelists:

Michael Bordo, Professor of Economics and Director, Center for Monetary and Financial History, Rutgers University, Edward C. Prescott, 2004 Nobel Laureate in Economic Sciences; W. P. Carey Chair of Economics, W. P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University, Benn Steil, Senior Fellow and Director of International Economics, Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Sylla, Henry Kaufman Professor of the History of Financial Institutions and Markets, and Professor of Economics, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, New York University

McKinsey Executive Roundtable Series in International Economics: Crisis and Capitalism: Does History Suggest Where We're Headed?

Speakers:

Michael Bordo, Professor of Economics and Director of the Center for Monetary and Financial History, Rutgers University, Jerry Muller, Professor of History, Catholic University of America, Robert J. Shiller, Arthur M. Okun Professor of Economics, Yale University, Richard Sylla, Henry Kaufman Professor of History of Financial Institutions and Markets, New York University

Presider:

Benn Steil, Senior Fellow and Director of International Economics, Council on Foreign Relations

Presider:

The Financial Crisis: Where Do We Go From Here?

Speakers:

Nouriel Roubini, Professor of Economics, Stern School of Business, New York University; Chairman, RGE Monitor, Brad W. Setser, Fellow for Geoeconomics, Council on Foreign Relations, Benn Steil, Director of International Economics, Council on Foreign Relations

Introductory Speakers:

Walter Shorenstein, Founder, Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy, Harvard University, William J. Perry, Professor, Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford University; Former United States Secretary of Defense (1994-97)

With all the discussion of currency wars, BNN looks at whether establishing a new global monetary order in the fashion of Bretton Woods is ever again possible with Benn Steil, Senior Fellow and Director of International Economics at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of The Battle of Bretton Woods: John Maynard Keynes, Harry Dexter White and the Making of a New World Order.

Amanda Lang and Kevin O'Leary take you inside the business world with their trade mark thought-provoking coverage. Benn Steil dicusses the significance of Bretton Woods and why he decided to write a book about the conference. Interview begins at 33:50.

British dominance of global finance came to a screeching halt in the modest rooms of a hotel at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire. Meghna Chakrabarti, Anthony Brooks, and Benn Steil take a look at the epic showdown that took place there and what we can learn from the architects of the world's financial system.

CNBC's Michelle Caruso-Cabrera reports on the latest details of the impact from the Greek elections; and Andrew Busch, BMO Capital Markets and Benn Steil, Council on Foreign Relations, weigh in. "If we don't recapitalize the Spanish banking sector, we won't have time for the types of reforms we want," says Steil.

CNBC's Larry Kudlow discusses whether deflation could be on the horizon. Rebecca Patterson, JP Morgan Asset Management; Zane Brown, Lord Abbett; and Benn Steil, Council on Foreign Relations, also weigh in on the markets.

CNBC's Simon Hobbs has the story on France and Germany's efforts to get fiscal integration among eurozone countries. Discussing whether Europe will get it done, Benn Steil, Council on Foreign Relations; Andrew Busch, BMO Capital Markets; and Nicholas Burns, Harvard University professor.

The government of Prime Minister George Papandreou is teetering on the verge of collapse after he abandoned the referendum on the EU package. With NBC's Michelle Kosinski; Benn Steil, Council on Foreign Relations; and Nick Economides, Advisor to Central Bank of Greece.